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Judith L. Harris

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As the cherry blossoms prepare to bloom in Washington, D.C., our thoughts turn toward wondering when the D.C. Circuit will hand down its ruling in ACA International, et al v. FCC (Case No. 15-1211). This case, you will recall, is the consolidation of a number of appeals challenging the July 10, 2015, Order in which the FCC gave a very expansive reading to a number of provisions in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), long a thorn in the sides of businesses attempting to communicate with their customers by phone or text. Most notably, the Order provided a definition of an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS) that many feel went way beyond the statutory language the Order was purporting to interpret. Moreover, the Order afforded little satisfaction to businesses mistakenly dialing reassigned numbers. Our previous blog posts analyzing the Order and the Appeal predicted that the D.C. Circuit would most likely issue its decision in spring 2017.

And now, spring has sprung, the administration has changed, and so, too, has the chairman of the FCC. Chairman Wheeler, sometimes criticized for interpreting the law liberally to accomplish policy goals, is gone, and in his place is Ajit Pai, a commissioner in the Wheeler era, and now elevated to chair by President Trump. In summer 2015, Mr. Pai was one of two dissenters in the ACA Order; the other, Michael O’Reilly, remains a commissioner under Chairman Pai. Additionally, two of the three “yes” votes in ACA are now gone, with only Commissioner Clyburn still at the Agency, and the president seems in no hurry to fill the vacancies. In any event, filling those vacancies would likely not affect the current balance of power at the Commission.
Continue Reading Recent Open Meeting Foreshadows FCC Commissioners’ Views if ACA Decision Is Remanded

On October 26, the Federal Communications Commission convened a second meeting of the Robocall Strike Force, which has been working for two months to develop solutions to the problem of illegal and unwanted robocalls. The Strike Force, led by AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, was established at the behest of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, and is composed of members from 33 companies in the telecommunications industry. Its charge was to develop innovative and comprehensive solutions to detect and prevent undesired calls to consumers.

Unwanted phone calls and text messages continue to be the number one complaint to the FCC by a wide margin, and the volume of such complaints continues steadily to rise, despite the Commission’s laborious efforts, through rulemakings and the issuance of declaratory rulings, to interpret the Telephone Consumer Act (TCPA), the statute giving the FCC authority over unwanted calls, in a more and more consumer-friendly fashion, and despite both a stepped-up enforcement at the FCC and a continuous deluge of private class action lawsuits.Continue Reading FCC Robocall Strike Force Releases Its Report on Curbing Unwanted and Illegal Robocalls

TCPA class actions continue to plague companies around the country, but a recent FCC ruling means that one big caller doesn’t have to worry: the federal government, as well as its contractors.

On July 5, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a declaratory ruling that broadly exempted the federal government and its contractors from the requirements of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which include obtaining prior express consent before making most calls to mobile phones.
Continue Reading Federal Government and Its Contractors Exempt from the TCPA, FCC Rules

In an instructive opinion on how intangible harms can cause injuries sufficient to confer standing on plaintiffs—and a rare example of the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest ruling on standing aiding plaintiffs—a West Virginia federal court ruled June 30 that computer-dialed telemarketing calls caused concrete, particularized privacy invasions such that plaintiff’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) putative class action claim could move forward.

The ruling in Mey v. Got Warranty, Inc., et al., No. 5:15-cv-00101 (N.D. W.Va. June 30, 2016) provides a contrast to the growing number of dismissals issued by courts across the country finding that, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Spokeo v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016), plaintiffs in various cases failed to allege concrete, particularized injuries sufficient for Article III standing.1   Because of this, it may provide guidance for plaintiffs—particularly in the area of technology-related statutes and data breaches, where standing is often an issue—on how to avoid summary dismissal of their claims.  Given the court’s detailed opinion, the import of the holding may extend well beyond the context of the case, in which plaintiff alleged she received numerous robocalls in violation of TCPA provisions barring autodialed, prerecorded messages and calls to those on the National Do Not Call Registry.Continue Reading Federal Court Finds Intangible Harm Caused by Robocalls Sufficient for Post-Spokeo Standing in TCPA Claim Alleging Privacy Invasion

Some of you may remember that back in early November 2015, I wrote about a then little-noticed provision slipped into the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. That provision, designed to find more revenues to offset government spending (and thus help to reduce the federal deficit), created an exemption from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act…

Automated dialing systems are back – temporarily – like never before. The new Budget Act provision makes “robocalls” to mobile phones a nonissue when used to collect money owed to the United States government. Following this release, Sen. Ed Markey spoke out and is reportedly preparing a “Hang Up Act” aimed at repealing this robocall…

On Friday, July 24, the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation issued an Order consolidating in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals three timely petitions for review of a July 10, 2015 Declaratory Ruling and Order of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). That Order resolved 21 petitions for declaratory ruling, proposed rulemaking and clarification…

In its July 10, 2015 TCPA Omnibus Declaratory Ruling and Order, the Federal Communications Commission unfairly lumps legitimate businesses in with the telemarketing abusers that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) was intended to deter. Highlights within the ruling include:

  • An Expansive Definition of “Automatic Telephone Dialing System” or “Autodialer”
  • Liability for Calling Reassigned/Wrong

…

Yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) once again demonstrated to businesses the wisdom of that old adage, “be careful what you ask for.” The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) protects consumers from unwanted telephone calls and text messages and has created a cottage industry for the plaintiffs’ bar bringing a tsunami of individual and class…